Tom Loves Angela, a children’s entertainment app developed by international media company Outfit7 Limited, has over 50 million downloads on the Google Play Store and Apple iTunes with a rating of 4.1 aggregated from over 600,000 reviews. It is one of over 15 apps Outfit7 Limited has released and is part of the incredibly popular “Talking Tom” series, featuring multiple talking animals including Tom and Angela the cats. With a huge amount of downloads and rave reviews, it’s obvious that Tom Loves Angela is a hit with its audience. Is the app deserving of its praise? In this review I give an overview of how the game works and discuss the positive and negative aspects of the game and its appropriateness for children.
Gameplay
In Tom Loves Angela, the player takes control of Tom and interacts with his girlfriend Angela. There are multiple interactions available, the most interesting of which involve having voice and text conversations with Angela. Outfit7 Limited has designed a relatively smart artificial intelligence that responds to Tom’s actions with voice, text, and actions.
Upon loading into the game you’re prompted to choose whether you would like to turn Child Mode on and to decide whether or not you’d like push notifications when there are updates to the app. You are then presented with the screen that you will interact from for the rest of the game, with Tom the Talking Cat standing on a roof beneath his girlfriend Angela.
While Tom Loves Angela is a really exciting game to play, it also requires a lot of coins and diamonds to progress through the game. Although you can get the coins and diamonds through the app store, you will find out that this gets really expensive. If you would like to get the diamonds and coins for free, then you need to check out our hack tool for Tom Loves Angela, which gives you unlimited amounts of these items for free.
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Interactions
There are numerous interactions the player can trigger between Tom and Angela. By simply talking into your phone, Tom will repeat the words you say to Angela. By tapping on either Tom or Angela, they’ll react – both seem to not appreciate being poked! By swiping over Tom, he’ll blow a kiss to Angela. If you shake your phone, you’ll trigger an earthquake that shakes the screen and characters. By blowing into the microphone, you can make the wind blow which ruffles the cats’ fur and shakes the drapery.
When you press the bottom right button, you enter chat mode where you can type or talk to Angela and receive (more often than not) intelligent responses. Typing some variant of Quiz in the chat bar starts a trivia game with Angela.
The song button at the bottom left of Tom Loves Angela triggers a duet between Tom and Angela titled “You Get Me.” “You Get Me” also has a music video on YouTube featuring the two with over 219 million views as of June 2015.
The Flower Pot button at the bottom of the screen causes Ginger the cat to drop a flower pot on Tom.
The Gift button in Tom Loves Angela causes Tom to give Angela one of several gifts, and Angela reacts appropriately depending on which one she gets.
Videos
The button at the top left of Tom Loves Angela allows you to record interactions between the two cats. Tapping the button starts a recording which continues until you tap it again. Upon ending the recording, you’re given the option to save to your phone’s gallery or share to Facebook, Messaging, or Google+. You’re also given the option to set the audio you recorded as your ringtone.
The button next to the recording button opens up a list of Webisodes based on Tom the Talking Cat and his friends. The online videos make up a kid-friendly series that accompanies the many apps published by Outfit7 Limited. By pressing the info button, players can activate or deactivate Child mode, review a list of interactions, and connect to the Talking Tom website. The last button at the top right of the screen simply opens a selection of advertisements.
Child Safety Features
Tom Loves Angela and the other apps by Outfit7 Limited are dedicated to protecting the privacy of youth and providing safe entertainment. Tom Loves Angela is certified by PRIVO, an organization that evaluates media consumed by children. The seal from PRIVO recognizes that the game is COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection) compliant. In order to share any recordings made in Tom Loves Angela, the player must enter their birthdate. This ensures that the young audience the game is intended for doesn’t give up any of their privacy.
Tom Loves Angela, as mentioned above, is part of a larger family of similar apps. Tom the Talking Cat and his friends also star in online episodes that are entertaining and safe for children. Though designed with children in mind, the game can be amusing even for adults as Tom the Cat repeats what you say, and Angela often has interesting responses to the messages you type in chat.
Ultimately, the game sets out to provide fun and safe entertainment for children and I definitely think that it accomplishes that goal. The simple yet surprisingly smart artificial intelligence behind Angela will entertain kids for a long while, not to mention the accompanying videos that provide hours of animated content.
Parents can also feel good about letting their children play Tom Loves Angela as the game is COPPA compliant and has safeguards in place to protect their young audience.
For these reasons I think Tom loves Angela is an excellent choice to download for parents looking for free and easy entertainment for their kids.
Ratings
Artwork: Tom Loves Angela has great graphics and animations. Unfortunately, the experience is lessened slightly by the obtrusive advertisements plastered across the top of the screen. Rating: 6/10
Music / Sound Effects: When you aren’t interacting at all the game is quiet. The sound effects are high quality and the little duet that Tom and Angela sing together is cute and is still enjoyable after hearing it several times. Rating: 8/10
Story / Originality: There is no story in the app per se, but it’s easy to discover one and learn more about the characters by accessing the webisodes built into the game. There have been games before that respond intelligently to your input, but I haven’t seen one in a while that specifically caters to young children. Rating: 7/10
General Gameplay: As an adult, the gameplay got old relatively quickly. However, Tom Loves Angela is intended for children and I know for sure that I would have enjoyed this as a kid. Children, at least initially, don’t recognize that they’re talking to a computer with a bank of set responses and will have fun talking to Angela. Rating: 8/10
Addictiveness: The game itself is not very addicting, but with its novel artificial intelligence and integration with the online series and music videos, I can see Tom Loves Angela being a hit with its target audience. Rating: 6/10
Overall Rating: Tom Loves Angela is a pretty unique game that has proven itself safe for young children by holding up to rigorous standards. The integrated videos give a backstory to Tom Loves Angela and increase the shelf-life of the game. For parents looking for a safe game to keep their kids occupied, Tom Loves Angela comes highly recommended. Rating: 9/10